Tag: love

As in life, we all need rules in our homes. Everything and everyone would decend into chaos without them. So, as parents, we discern the best rules and routines to establish in our family life. No doubt we come up with good ones that serve admirable purposes. But it can be easy to lose sight of the fact that there is one rule that should govern and give meaning to all others — the rule of charity.

Love. “For the greatest of these is love,” writes the Apostle Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians. One of the reasons we establish rules in our households is to support the development of virtue in all its members. However, it is impossible to truly develop any other virtue without love. For as St. Paul says earlier in that same passage, though I may do any number of worthy things “but have not love, I am nothing.”

I recently came across these words of St. Vicent de Paul:

“Charity is certainly greater than any rule. Moreover, all rules must lead to charity.” (Epistle 2546)

I sat with these words for a moment, contemplating their relevance to my family’s life. Most of our rules and routines at home stem from a spirit of love. In fact, because we love our children we establish rules that will move them toward truth, goodness, and beauty. But I realize that in the middle of enforcing rules and the disciplining that comes when they are broken, I can often find myself removed from (dare I say in conflict with) the loving intentions that birthed the rules from the beginning. Continue reading “The Rule of Charity in Your Domestic Church”→

It’s St. Therese’s feast day on Saturday (Oct. 1), and her words have been on my mind and heart recently as I’ve been praying her Novena. I finished reading her autobiography, The Story of a Soul, last month; and one theme in particular has stayed with me as I go about my daily tasks: we are to do little things with great love.

We learn from this Doctor of the Church, that our path to becoming more like Jesus is really all about how we love. Moreover, it’s all about how we love in the little things. In the little encounters and duties of our daily lives we will discover whether we really have love. The presence of love will be more apparent in the quiet acts of service than in the loud displays of our faith. It is truly revealed in the hidden charities that few see, rather than the public demonstrations.

If the little activities of our days do not reveal much love, then we can see the opportunities we have to redeem. And redeem them we must. As Saint Paul says, “If I have not love, I am nothing;” and “if I have not love, I gain nothing” (1 Cor. 13:2-3). Whether we do great things or small things matters not for eternity. What matters for eternity is that we did what God called us to do with great love. Whether you make a meal today, sweep a floor, hold a door, pick up someone else’s trash, pay for someone’s meal, give someone your seat, or clean up yet another potty training accident–do it with great love. We must all get to the place where we can say with conviction of heart, along with St. Therese, “My vocation is LOVE!”